scholarly journals Categorical perception, category boundary effects, and continuous perception: A reply to Hary and Massaro

1984 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 583-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Pastore ◽  
Rosemary Szczesiul ◽  
Virginia Wielgus ◽  
Karen Nowikas ◽  
Robert Logan
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Boundary Effects

scholarly journals Categorical perception of control

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Wen ◽  
Naoto Shimazaki ◽  
Ryu Ohata ◽  
Atsushi Yamashita ◽  
Hajime Asama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
External World ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Sense Of Control ◽  
Physical Change ◽  
Distinct Entity ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
The World

The self is a distinct entity from the rest of the world, and actions and sensory feedback are our channels of interaction with the external world. This study examined how the sense of control influences people’s perception of sensorimotor input under the framework of categorical perception. Experiment 1 showed that the sensitivity (d′) of detecting a 20% change in control from no change was higher when the changes occurred at the control-category boundary, than within each category. Experiment 2 showed that the control categories greatly affected early attention allocation even when the judgment of control was unnecessary to the task. Taking together, these results showed that our perceptual and cognitive systems are designed to be highly sensitive to small changes in control that build up to a determinant change in the control category within a relatively narrow boundary zone between categories, compared to a continuous, gradual physical change in control.

Categorical Perception of Facial Expressions by 7-Month-Old Infants

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p3155 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. 1115-1125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Kotsoni ◽  
Michelle de Haan ◽  
Mark H Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Basic Characteristic ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Visual Preference ◽  
Young Infants ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Facial Expressions Of Emotion

Recent research indicates that adults show categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion. It is not known whether this is a basic characteristic of perception that is present from the earliest weeks of life, or whether it is one that emerges more gradually with experience in perceiving and interpreting expressions. We report two experiments designed to investigate whether young infants, like adults, show categorical perception of facial expressions. 7-month-old infants were shown photographic quality continua of interpolated (morphed) facial expressions derived from two prototypes of fear and happiness. In the first experiment, we used a visual-preference technique to identify the infants' category boundary between happiness and fear. In the second experiment, we used a combined familiarisation – visual-preference technique to compare infants' discrimination of pairs of expressions that were equally physically different but that did or did not cross the emotion-category boundary. The results suggest that 7-month-old infants (i) show evidence of categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion, and (ii) show persistent interest in looking at fearful expressions.

scholarly journals Perception of tones in Mandarin and Dutch adult listeners

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 622-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liquan Liu ◽  
Ao Chen ◽  
René Kager
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Acoustic Perception ◽  
Index Analysis ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Continuum

Abstract This paper examines the nature of categorical perception (CP) effects in Mandarin and Dutch adult listeners through identification and discrimination tasks using lexical tonal contrasts and through the CP index analysis. In identification tasks, Mandarin listeners identify tones in accordance with their native tonal categories whereas Dutch listeners do so based on acoustic properties. In discrimination tasks, Dutch listeners outperform Mandarin listeners especially in tonal steps on the continuum falling within the Mandarin tonal category boundary, whereas Mandarin listeners display high sensitivity in discrimination of stimuli falling across the native boundary. The CP index analysis shows a higher degree of CP in Mandarin (categorical perception) than in Dutch (psycho-acoustic perception) listeners.

scholarly journals Pattern Separation Contributes to Categorical Face Perception

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stevenson Baker ◽  
Ariana Youm ◽  
Yarden Levy ◽  
Morris Moscovitch ◽  
R. Shayna Rosenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Pattern Separation ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Nonlinear Identification ◽  
Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus ◽  
Discrimination Experiment ◽  
Category Discrimination ◽  
Boundary Controls ◽  
Bilateral Lesions

AbstractTraditionally considered a memory structure, the hippocampus has been shown to contribute to non-memory functions, from perception to language. Recent evidence suggests that the ability to differentiate highly confusable faces could involve pattern separation, a mnemonic process mediated by the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG). Hippocampal involvement, however, may depend on existing face memories. To investigate these possibilities, we tested BL, a rare individual with bilateral lesions selective to the DG, and healthy controls. Both were administered morphed images of famous and nonfamous faces in a categorical perception (CP) identification and discrimination experiment. All participants exhibited nonlinear identification of famous faces with a midpoint category boundary. Controls identified newly learned nonfamous faces with lesser fidelity, while BL showed a notable shift in category boundary. When discriminating face pairs, controls showed typical CP effects of better between-category than within-category discrimination — but only for famous faces. BL showed extreme within-category “compression,” reflecting his tendency to pattern complete following suboptimal pattern separation. We provide the first evidence that pattern separation contributes to CP of faces.

Major/Minor Triad Identification and Discrimination by Musically Trained and Untrained Listeners

1992 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Howard ◽  
Stuart Rosen ◽  
Victoria Broad
Keyword(s):  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Intermediate Group ◽  
Musical Skills ◽  
Strong Positive Relationship ◽  
Strong Indicator ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Continuum

The extent to which a computer-synthesized continuum of major to minor triads was categorically perceived was examined using labeling and discrimination tests. The 32 listeners varied widely in " musicality," assessed by an objective test of basic musical skills. There was a strong positive relationship between musicality and ability to label the major/minor continuum consistently ( measured by the slope of the labeling function). Overall discrimination performance varied only weakly with musicality, although the pattern of discrimination performance across the continuum differed strongly among three listener subgroups, distinguished on the basis of musicality. The most "musical" listeners showed a close relationship between the position of the discrimination peak and the category boundary calculated from the labeling function, a strong indicator of categorical perception. On similar criteria, the evidence for categorical perception was nonexistent in the least musical listeners and moderate in an intermediate group. From the evidence that the extent of categorical perception appears to vary in a graded fashion with the degree of musicality, we conclude that categorical perception can arise primarily through a process of learning.

scholarly journals It matters to me if you are human: Categorical perception in human and nonhuman agent spectra

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Wiese ◽  
Patrick P. Weis
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Cognitive Conflict ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Mouse Tracking ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Robotic Agent

Humanlike but not perfectly human agents frequently evoke feelings of eeriness, a phenomenon termed the Uncanny Valley (UV). The Categorical Perception Hypothesis proposes that effects associated with the UV are due to uncertainty as to whether to categorize agents falling into the valley as “human” or “nonhuman”. However, since UV studies have traditionally looked at agents of varying human-likeness, it remains unclear whether UV-related effects are due to categorical uncertainty in general or are specifically evoked by categorizations that require decisions regarding an agent’s human-likeness. Here, we used mouse tracking to determine whether agent spectra with (i.e., robot-human) and without (i.e., robot-animal and robot-stuffed animal) a human endpoint cause phenomena related to categorical perception to comparable extents. Specifically, we compared human and nonhuman agent spectra with respect to existence and location of a category boundary (H1-1 and H2-1), as well as the magnitude of cognitive conflict around the boundary (H1-2 and H2-2). The results show that human and nonhuman spectra exhibit category boundaries (H1-1) at which cognitive conflict is higher than for less ambiguous parts of the spectra (H1-2). However, in human agent spectra cognitive conflict maxima were more pronounced than for nonhuman agent spectra (H2-1) and category boundaries were shifted towards the human endpoint of the spectrum (H2-2). Overall, these results suggest a quantitatively, though not qualitatively, different categorization process for spectra containing human endpoints. Possible reasons and the impact for virtual and robotic agent design are discussed.

scholarly journals Topological Relations Between Objects Are Categorically Coded

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1408-1418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Lovett ◽  
Steven L. Franconeri
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Modeling ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Category Boundary ◽  
Topological Relations ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Continuous Space ◽  
Relational Categories ◽  
Systematic Exploration ◽  
Object Relational

How do individuals compare images—for example, two graphs or diagrams—to identify differences between them? We argue that categorical relations between objects play a critical role. These relations divide continuous space into discrete categories, such as “above” and “below,” or “containing” and “overlapping,” which are remembered and compared more easily than precise metric values. These relations should lead to categorical perception, such that viewers find it easier to notice a change that crosses a category boundary (one object is now above, rather than below, another, or now contains, rather than overlaps with, another) than a change of equal magnitude that does not cross a boundary. We tested the influence of a set of topological categorical relations from the cognitive-modeling literature. In a visual same/different comparison task, viewers more accurately noticed changes that crossed relational category boundaries, compared with changes that did not cross these boundaries. The results highlight the potential of systematic exploration of the boundaries of between-object relational categories.

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